


Reintroductions for the First Time

by White_Tiger94



Category: Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Age Regression/De-Aging, Batfamily (DCU) Feels, Cassandra Cain is Black Bat, Damian Wayne is Robin, Dick Grayson is Nightwing, Duke Thomas is Signal, Gen, Jason Todd is Red Hood, Kinda, Memory Loss, Protective Batfamily (DCU), Robin!Dick, Tim Drake is Red Robin, it's a weird day in Gotham, jason did not sign up for this, kinda (agian), must be a day ending in y, not at the moment but you get what I mean
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-13
Updated: 2021-01-12
Packaged: 2021-03-17 12:15:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,508
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28724943
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/White_Tiger94/pseuds/White_Tiger94
Summary: When Dick Grayson gets hit with a de-aging gun, the Bat Family must scramble to get their eldest out of trouble. But that's only the start, when Dick must be introduced all over again to most of his family. Who are these people, and what is Dick's place in this crazy group that claim to be his family?
Relationships: Dick Grayson & Duke Thomas, Dick Grayson & Jason Todd
Comments: 8
Kudos: 150





	Reintroductions for the First Time

Dick came to with the sound of whispers surrounding him. The cold hard surface under him told him that he wasn't in his bed at the manor. And he didn't recognize the voices he could hear. His training made him lay still and quiet, giving him a chance to figure out what was happening.

“...I’m just saying, this plan seems far too complicated as it is. I mean, that gun? We don’t even really know how it works.” the first voice was nasally, making it sound whiny.

Another voice cut in, sounding bored. “You point it at someone, pull the trigger, and they become a kid. What more do you want.”

The whiney voice spoke again, “I’m just saying it's way too complicated. There are plenty of Wayne’s kids these days, why couldn’t we have grabbed one of the actual kids and been done with it.”

“Yeah, but the younger ones tend to stick together. Harder to get alone." The second voice sounded smugly superior now, seeming to enjoy lording his knowledge over the other one. "Not like this one, idiot rich bloke walking around Gotham streets without a bodyguard. You should have seen Greg’s face when he turned into that alley. Made the whole thing so much easier.”

What? Dick didn’t remember these guys following him at all. In fact, casting his mind back, he couldn’t remember anything recent. His memories seemed foggy, almost like they had lost detail over time. But than why didn’t he remember anything more recent?

“Is Wayne even going to recognize the kid when we send in the ransom demand? After all, kids adopted, it's not like he had baby pictures or anything.”

“The gun didn’t send him back that far, he looks like he’s at least a teenager. That should be close enough that even Brucie Wayne can recognize his own kid.”

What gun? What did they mean, send him back?

“And then what? You know the minute the ransom demand goes out, the bats are going to be on our tail.”

“That’s why we needed the gun, idiot. It doesn’t matter if the bats or the cops get the kid back, nobody but us knows how that gun works. We can hold that knowledge hostage until we get our money.”

“Alright, fine. At least it's better than the last job I worked with the Riddler. Did you know he made us create this mini train station, said it was necessary to complete the puzzle…”

Dick counted his breaths as the voices faded away, waiting until they were probably out of sight to open his eyes and sit up.

He didn’t recognize his clothes, and they were hanging off of him, several sizes too large.

That fit with the idea that the guys he had heard had been telling the truth, and they had hit him with some kind of de-aging gun. Which meant that even though he thought he was fourteen years old, he was actually much older.

Wayne kids. As in more than one. As in more than just him.

Dick knew that Bruce’s cover as a playboy meant he often spent the night with “female friends”. Most of those were actually driven away by various means, so they did not impede Bruce’s night job. But Dick had often wondered about the other nights when he went to bed with an empty master bedroom. He supposed that eventually one or another of those would result in a kid.

Dick tried to suppress the spike of fear that went through him at the thought of Bruce with his own child, his own baby. There was no way Bruce would set him aside. He was Robin, Batman’s partner. Even if a new kid would take up all the attention and sparse praise and what if his dad didn’t care about him anymore…?

Dick had to stop himself from thinking for a moment to get his breathing under control. He forced himself to think about something else, anything but the thought of his only remaining parental figure setting him to the side in favor of some kid he didn’t even know…

Okay, no, focus Robin. What did he know?

He was being held against his will, that much was obvious. The handcuff on his right arm holding him to a pole said as much. He was in civilian clothes, even if he didn’t recognize them, and the men he had heard referred to him as “Wayne” so that meant a daytime kidnapping not connected to his nightlife. Which meant a ransom demand had probably been sent out.

From the state of his clothes he could guess that he was fully grown before the de-aging hit him. He had to be at least 20, if not older. Which meant there was at least six years of memories he was missing.

Was Batman still active, or had an injury taken him out of the field for good? Was the Justice League still around? Were any of the heroes he knew still working? How much could have changed in six years?

Focus on what you know, not what you can’t, Bruce’s voice in his mind reminded him. He had no way of finding out that information, so it was better to think about what he did know.

B would come for him. He knew that with certainty. If he was on his deathbed, unable to walk, Dick still knew that Bruce would move heaven and earth to get him back. He just had to be patient. Someone would come for him.

That didn’t mean Dick wanted to wait around like some damsel in distress, though. He started looking around, taking notice of his surroundings.

He was in some kind of warehouse. There were large crates scattered everywhere, and bulky objects covered in sheets placed haphazardly. There were meandering walkways between the piles and crates, forcing people to walk through a certain path. Up on the wall nearest Dick was a window, placed at least twice his height. He figured the opposite wall was where the entrance was. He looked up to find the ceiling had the open trusses that were favored in so much Gotham architecture, shadows covering half of the ceiling. The Bat would have no problems moving around this space.

Dick turned his attention back to his things.

His backpack, with his bat-themed key chain and tracking device, was nowhere to be seen.

Although, he reconsidered, if he was an adult now he probably didn’t own a school backpack anymore. So where would his tracker and panic button be?

He moved to check his pockets, though those were probably searched when he got captured. Something jingled slightly on his wrist. He looked over, to find a wristwatch. He had never worn one consistently before, but it looked like something he might wear, blue with silver accents.

Bingo.

Dick felt over the face of the watch and the back, trying to see if there were any hidden buttons. He found a slight indentation on one side, next to where the band started. He pressed it as hard as he could for six seconds, then let go.

There was no change, of course, but hopefully he had found the right spot. Hopefully he was right about the watch being a tracker. 

Hopefully something was going right today.

Next his hands came down to his shoes. It was easy to slip the left one off and find the compartment hidden in the sole. Just like the clothes he remembered wearing. He gratefully pulled the set of lock picks and what looked like small smoke pellets out of the compartment, hiding them somewhere easier to reach.

He felt better now that he had supplies. With the lock picks he could get out of his chains in seconds. The smoke pellets would buy him some cover if he had to make a break for it. And worse came to worst, he was probably much better at hand-to-hand combat then these guys were expecting. He had options if things started to go wrong.

He reached down again and untied and retied his shoes, trying to tie them as tight as possible. The fit was still very loose, but if Dick had to move he didn’t think his shoes would go flying off. Not only would that possibly cause a distracting noise, he had absolutely no desire to go wandering around Gotham without some kind of footwear. That was just asking to catch some horrific disease. He took a moment to tighten the watch as well, in case it was the tracker.

He couldn’t think of anything else he could do to prepare, so he settled down to wait, focusing on one of Bruce’s breathing exercises. Hopefully it would calm him down.

  
  
  
  
  


It was maybe 20 minutes later that he heard the sound of the same voices from before coming towards him.

The first one he heard was the smugly superior one. “Alright, go grab the kid, it's time to make the ransom demand. Jeff will take off to the other safehouse with the gun.”

“And then what?”

“Once we send the ransom demand, we’re going to leave the kid here for the police. We’ll let them have the gun once Wayne has paid up.”

Okay, so waiting around was no longer an option. If they managed to take the gun somewhere else, they might not be able to track the gang and he might be stuck de-aged forever.

The footsteps were getting louder as the people came closer. Quickly Dick grabbed the lockpicks and set to work. Just as he had thought, he was out of the cuff in seconds. He was just about to dart out of sight behind some of the boxes when the building was suddenly rocked by a small explosion.

Voices started shouting from all over the place.

“What, Who…?”

“It’s the Bats, must be…”

“Crap, how did they…”

Dick didn’t realize he was frozen in place until the first gunshot went off. He startled at the loud noise, then on instinct dived for a space between two of the boxes. It was small and shadowy, but it was out of sight of the walkway and there was just enough space between the wall and the boxes that he could crawl out in a different direction later. He palmed one of the smoke pellets as he waited.

Two men ran past his hiding place, guns drawn and eyes wide as they looked around anxiously. “Did you see which one it was?” the shorter man stifled his panting, crouching behind a tall stack of something, only the pallet underneath visible below the tarp.

The taller one crouched on the other side of the walkway, taking a moment to turn his back to a large box and catch his breath. He shook his head, still looking panicked. “No, I didn’t stay to find out. We’ve gotta get out of here.”

The shorter man nodded. “Grab the kid, we can use him as a hostage to get out of the building.”

The taller man seemed to agree, because he turned toward the pole where Dick had been tied minutes before. “What… he’s gone!” the man yelled, surprised. His companion turned to look as well and just that moment, a heavy thud sounded from the box above them.

“Well, well, well, what do we have here, boys?” a voice sounded above them, something metallic about the sound. A robot, or a vocal modifier?

The shorter man looked like he was staring at the grim reaper. “Heh, R…Red Ho…Hood. We…we can ex…explain?”

The laugh that answered him was sinister. “Oh, I’m sure you can.” There was a gunshot, and the shorter man slumped. Dick’s breath froze in his lungs, before he saw the dart poking out of the man’s hand. A dark shape jumped down from the crate and approached the taller man who was doing his best not to look like he was trying to back up. “But I'm not too interested in explanations right now.”

“Wait…wait! I’ll tell you everything… tell you where to get the weird gun!” the taller man tried to bargain.

“Oh, this gun?” the man said, taking something out from behind him. It looked like no gun that Dick had ever seen. The metal was a shiny color that didn't look like steel but still reflected light, and the grip seemed to be made for a hand with more fingers than a human. “You should know better than to go playing with alien tech, Buddy. This kind of thing has a habit of blowing up in people’s faces.” The dark shape moved forward again, and stepped far enough out that Dick could see him clearly.

The man was tall, maybe as tall as Bruce. A blood red helmet covered his entire head, blank white eye spots the only decoration. The chest was covered by a leather jacket, but under it Dick could see black Kevlar. And in the middle of the chest was a bat just like Bruce's, as red as the helmet.

Dick took a deep breath, thoughts tumbling over themselves in his mind. Bats, they had said. What if it wasn’t just B running around wearing a batsuit nowadays? What if this is the new Batman? Though Dick could see the guns strapped to the man’s thighs, and Bruce hated guns, would he work with someone who used them…?

While Dick had been thinking, the goon had been trying to bargain. The guy in the red helmet seemed to be contemplating him, and the goon even seemed to be hopeful. Then before Dick could blink there was a gun in the red helmet guy’s hand and a dart in the goon’s neck. The guy in the red helmet turned around as the goon dipped to the ground. “Good talk, Buddy. ‘Wing will be happy with the info.”

He stopped for a moment to regard the handcuff that lay abandoned on the ground. “You got yourself out, good job. Now where are you?” Dick didn’t respond, and after a moment the red helmet guy seemed to grow nervous. “Dickie? You good?” he asked in a low voice.

Dick took another deep breath. This guy knew him, and probably knew Bruce if the bat was any indication. He could probably trust him. And he needed that gun if he was going to have any way of getting back to normal. Plus he needed answers.

He stepped out into the light, and the guy whirled to look at him.

The man in the red helmet just stared at him for a few moments, then said: “Crap. De-aging?”

Dick nodded. Then he opened his mouth and the first question to pop out was: “Wayne kids, plural?” that wasn’t what he had meant to ask first at all.

The slightly robotic voice from the helmet let out a sigh. “Yep, plural. Hey, big brother.”

Dick blinked. Oh, he thought. That, that changes things.

There was a footstep from farther into the warehouse, and instantly the red helmet guy- his brother?- was moving between him and the threat. He moved out from behind the man with a frown. He was perfectly capable of taking care of himself.

A woman stepped out, dressed completely in black, with the outline of a yellow bat etched on her chest. The man in the red helmet relaxed immediately. “Black Bat. We good?”

She nodded, and though Dick couldn’t see her eyes, he could tell she was looking at him curiously. The man in front of him responded without prompting. “Looks like de-aging caused by alien tech. I’ve got the gun, so we should be able to figure out a reversal once I get it back to the Cave. Doesn’t seem to have retained any memories beyond his physical age, which means…” the man’s helmet turned to address Dick again. “Hey, how old would you say you are?”

“I’m fourteen,” Dick responded after a moment’s thought. It wasn’t like that information would be too useful to anyone who didn’t know him.

Red Helmet nodded. “Okay, so you’ve been B’s ward for about six years then, right? Probably means you know a certain big blue boy scout.”

Dick’s mouth went dry. Superman. They were talking about Superman. He wasn’t sure how to respond, the nickname being vague enough that probably only a few people would know who they were talking about. But confirming it would be bad too, if they weren’t who they said they were.

The man’s voice came again, sounding gentle. “Its okay, Dick. You don’t have to trust us. Say the word and we’ll call Uncle C, or you can. B will probably be mad about it for a while, but if that’s what it takes to make you feel safe than we can call him right now.”

It wasn’t really the offer, or the casual use of his nickname for Supes that did it. It was the way neither seemed concerned about which choice he made. He could tell that they were willing to go along with whatever his decision was. It made making the decision much easier.

“I want my family,” Dick said as firmly as he could.

Both of the people in front of him nodded. “Okay, we can do that. Problem is you were snatched in daylight, so we’ll probably need to involve the police. Can you handle waiting?”

“Yeah,” Dick breathed, then said more decisively. “Yeah, I can wait. Who should I expect to pick me up?” Was Alfred still alive? Had he retired somewhere far away in the years Dick was now missing? The thought was like a knife through the chest.

“A will come to the police station, probably with whichever of the others he can grab. B’s unfortunately not available right now.” The man turned to face the woman once more. “I have to get this gun to the cave, can you stay with him?” The woman nodded.

Before Dick could grow offended at being given to a babysitter, the man turned back to him, placing a hand on his shoulder. “Look I don’t have much time. Try to stay calm and we’ll sort this out as soon as possible. Whatever you do, don’t let go of your watch until you're with family or in the police station.” So he had been right, the tracker was in his watch. “Do you understand?”

Dick nodded.

The red helmet nodded as well. “Right, you barely saw me. She’s the one that untied you and got you to safety.” Then he was off, running to and vaulting through the window high on the warehouse wall.

The woman in black came to him slowly, and led him to the front of the warehouse. She was silent, but Dick could tell she was paying attention to him as she guided him through the small walkways in the warehouse and around the bodies of unconscious thugs.

Arranged outside the warehouse in the weak afternoon sunlight were seven cop cars, lights flashing but no sirens. Near the front was a man in a trench coat that he recognized, and someone else in yellow armor.

Dick focused on Commissioner Gordon. His hair was streaked with white now, and he had even more wrinkles on his face than Dick remembered. But the way he gave a small, grateful smile when Dick became visible eased something in Dick’s chest. Good old Commish was the same as ever.

The guy in yellow armor exchanged a nod with the woman in black as they came up. Then he turned to address Gordon, his voice calm and authoritative. “The alien tech that caused this is on its way back to the cave, so we should have a cure completed relatively soon. Since there’s only one victim, I think it would be easiest for us to contact his family directly once we have figured it out so that he can be cured as fast as possible. We’ll call you as well, in case other victims come forward.”

Dick looked up at the man in yellow. He also had a bat on his chest, white this time. The man had acknowledged the woman beside him, but seemed to be completely ignoring Dick. Did this guy also know Dick? Was that why he wasn’t acknowledging him?

The Commissioner responded. “That sounds fine with me, thank you Signal. And you, Black Bat. We’ll take it from here.” The two nodded, and then simultaneously took off, running down the street and firing their grapple guns. The lines swung them over a building, and then they were out of view.

“Hi Dick,” Dick turned back to find Gordon had knelt down on one knee to speak with him. “I think we’ve met a couple of times at galas and your guardian’s parties. I know this must be confusing for you, but you're in the best hands I know right now. Everything will turn out fine.”

Dick tried to muster up a smile. “Yeah, I’m sure it will.”

**Author's Note:**

> This was originally conceived as a role reversal fic about Dick and Jason. That was back when I thought this was going to be only four chapters. Based on what I have so far for chapter 2, this is going to be much longer. So who knows how long this will wind up being. ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯ 
> 
> If you followed me from my last chaptered fic, you know I have a very erratic update schedule. I apologize in advance for what is likely to be months of wait after the next chapter. However! I do have most of chapter 2 done, it just needs some editing,so I will be uploading it next week. Please do not assume that this will be a pattern.
> 
> Some quick things about this universe:  
> If it wasn't obvious before, Dick was adopted by Bruce as a child, rather than as an adult like in some universes.  
> Jim Gordon has no idea what the real identities are of the Bats. yes, even Barbara. how? I have no idea, but I prefer him as a genuine outsider who has to deal with the nonsense the Gotham vigilantes get up to.  
> Bruce is off planet right now and will be Sir not-appearing-in-this-fic (unless this spawns a few more chapters when I'm not looking).
> 
> Thank you in advance to everyone who kudos and comments, I can't tell you how much I appreciate it. See you next week!


End file.
